Agriculture

Agriculture Web Committee

We are 6th graders at Mesa Union School. Our class is the first Agriculture class here at Mesa, and we are in the process of building a garden. We tested the soil to see if it is healthy for our crops we tested the soil for nitrogen, potassium, acidity, and phosphorous. Using a test kit, we found that everything was okay except the nitrogen. The results for nitrogen were “depleted”. Then we researched how to put nitrogen in our soil. Our research suggested adding coffee grounds, grass clippings, bananas, compost, manure, or planting legumes. Our first choice was to plant legumes, but we realized it was the wrong season for legumes. So Mr. Lynch arranged for your generous donation of amendment. Now our soil should be perfect.

We voted for what crops we wanted to plant. Our class intends to eat the crops we grow and give away the extra to the cafeteria. Our results were carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, celery, kale, and strawberries, although we don’t think cucumbers will grow in the fall.

Now we are measuring so we can find out what we need for irrigation and how many irrigation parts we need. We used strings of yarn that were three yards long to measure the length and width of the field. The width is 24 yards and the length is 54 yards. That means if each row takes up one foot and we put two feet in between the rows we can fit twenty-four rows in our garden. If the length is 54 yards and we have 24 rows we will need 3,888 feet of irrigation tubing. But we realized we have to have tubing to connect the rows. That means we need another 72 feet for that, so all together we need 3,960 feet of irrigation tubing. Next we needed to calculate the number of sprinklers and if we put one sprinkler per foot then we need 162 sprinklers per row which means we need 3,888 sprinklers altogether. That’s a lot! We just sent our order for these parts to our superintendent, Mr. Turner. When the parts arrive, we will install the irrigation and plant the seeds.

Our biggest worry is the gophers and rabbits that live here. They have eaten most of our gardens in the past.

Other areas of learning in our Agriculture course will be the value of hard work, team work, strategies and management of gardening, botany, food science, and career opportunities in agriculture.